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Tag Archives: Tookie Williams

A human being who was doing valuable work, and helping to make the world better, was killed in San Quentin, California, just after midnight, Tuesday December 13. [See SaveTookie.org for details of Mr. Williams’ anti-gang and anti-violence work.] “I could find no justification for granting clemency.” [Schwarzenegger Statement following Clemency Decision, 2005/12/12.] Tookie Williams was killed because he continued to protest his innocence. “Seven percent of those whose sentences were overturned between 1973 and 1995 have been found innocent.” [“Capital Punishment in the United States”, Wikipedia (12/13).] Tookie Williams was killed because Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has earned millions depicting various bloody and violent assaults, questioned the “efficacy of Williams’ [anti-violence] message”: “[T]he continued pervasiveness of gang violence leads one to question the efficacy of Williams’ message.” [Schwarzenegger Statement of Decision on Request for Clemency by Stanley Williams, p. 4.] Most importantly, perhaps, Tookie Williams was killed because it is politically expedient for politicians to be “tough on crime”. “Even if you assume he made the decision without political motivations, the political impact or ramifications certainly worked in his favor.” [Dan Schnur, Republican strategist, quoted in the Washington Post.]

Throughout Africa, Asia, and the United States, people face death at the hands of their own government. [Capital Punishment, Wikipedia (12/13).] Since 1976, the United States alone has put to death over a thousand people. The application of the death penalty is significantly affected by race and geography. Roughly 780 people (78% of the executions) have been killed in southern states comprising approximately a third of the United States popoulation (Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee). More than one-third of those executed in the United States since 1976 have been African-American. Most (perhaps 80%) of death penalty cases involve a white victim. As of July, 2005, over 3400 people are currently on death row in the United States. [“Capital Punishment in the United States”, Wikipedia (12/13).]

One such person is Cory Maye, a black man sentenced to death in Mississippi, for killing a white cop who entered his home after midnight while Maye and his toddler were sleeping. You can read more about Cory Maye’s case at the Agitator. And you can read more about the three thousand other death penalty cases in the US at these sites: